Subject: [Sipping] RE: Mission focus

From: "Burger, Eric" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2006 16:18:33 -0400

Uh - I may be mistaken, but no standards body mandated "you must do
film-quality photos" (1.8 megapixels, 24-bit color depth) in order to do
digital photography.  Lots of people were quite happy with 0.1
megapixels, to get started.

[OK kiddos; raise your hand in the audience if you have a clue what
"Toll Quality" means.  Right - I knew you didn't know that Toll Quality
represents diminished audio quality compared to a Local Call.]

The MARKET drove digital photography to the point that film photography
is virtually obsolete.  I still use my 35mm camera because I trashed my
digital camera (oops - mountains and cameras don't co-exist when one
drops ones camera from 12') and I am too cheap to buy a new one and
right now the cost of developing my 35mm rolls and having them scanned
by the processor is cheaper than buying a new digital camera.  [OK
kiddos; does this sound like 2001 with $0.02/min TDM calls putting a
damper on VoIP?]

Now, if you are in to conspiracy theories, how about this: in 2000, VoIP
was not "Toll Quality" under *all* circumstances.  Apologies to Henry
S., but let's face it, too many people discovered NetPhone and the
access bandwidth just wasn't there yet.  NetPhone went from better than
toll quality to single-side-band quality within 3 years.

OK, so you are a forward looking ILEC.  You see that *eventually* this
VoIP thing is going to work.  What to do?  You CANNOT just say, "OK, we
give up, let's go VoIP."  Your customers and regulators will be all over
you before you can say, "$100,000 donation to the campaign."  Likewise,
you cannot just say, "Let the Skypes of the world work out the bugs;
then we'll come in and offer great quality services."  In that model,
there is no more business to be had.

The conspiracy theory?  Let's tie up the IETF in knots trying to
replicate / emulate / simulate /
pick-your-favorite-standards-body-euphemism the PSTN.  That will slow
the IETF down by at least 5 years, which will give us a chance to catch
up and let the vendors get us stuff that might work.

[5 years you say?  Look at the number of SIP and SIPPING drafts that are
purely for PSTN emulation or compatibility.  They are at least 1/3rd of
our work!]

Just some stuff to chew on...

[Yes, now I feel better :-] 

-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Searle [mailto:[email-masked]] 
Sent: Sunday, March 26, 2006 7:02 PM
To: 'Dean Willis'
Cc: 'Andrew Allen'; [email-masked]
Subject: RE: Mission focus (was Re: [Sipping]
Requirementsfortheidentificationof IMScommunicationservices.)

Hi,

There is a misunderstanding. I do not mean for you to replicate the act
of circuit switching at 64kbit per second.  That is easy.  You could do
it with wet string. My comment about skype was to do with running
communication services that are essential to the social and economic
well being of the country; that can be relied on in an emergency or when
the deal needs to be done.  With great responsibility comes great
dinosaur standards processes that are the curse of the PSTN as well as
one of its strengths.  Perhaps you believe that communication over the
internet should not aim for such lofty ideals.  Perhaps SIP should
therefore consider its position and inform the IMS standards body,
rather than politely consider its requirements, that SIP was never
intended to support resilient communications and the IMS is wasting its
time.  If you really believe this you might save them a lot of
unnecessary work.

Oh, and digital photography would never have taken over from 35mm if it
could not match the quality of 35mm and offer other benefits besides.
Can you say you have the correct metaphor yet?   

Regards Mark

-----Original Message-----
From: Dean Willis [mailto:[email-masked]] 
Sent: 27 March 2006 00:13
To: Mark Searle
Cc: [email-masked]; 'Andrew Allen'; [email-masked];
[email-masked]
Subject: Mission focus (was Re: [Sipping] Requirements
fortheidentificationof IMScommunicationservices.)

Mark Searle wrote:

> What ever the undoubted advantages of the Internet for delivery of
data
> services we have yet to see a functioning Internet voice service.  By
> this I mean a commercial end-user replacement for the PSTN. 

So?

The Internet is NOT the PSTN. It is a different environment, with 
different principles, different physics, different goals, different 
business models, different applications, different regulation, and a 
different user experience.

Trying to exactly replicate the PSTN on top of the Internet is at best 
an academic exercise (and as Henning might say, I mean "academic in the 
worst way").

This is equivalent to using transgenetic science to turn a turkey-on-rye

sandwich into a roast-beef-on-wheat:

http://www.sluggy.com/daily.php?date=060320

I've spent about ten years in this exercise and I've come to realize 
that while I believe using the Internet to provide applications that 
help people communicate is a very reasonable thing to do, there's no 
good reason to artificially constrain ourselves to trying to replace the

PSTN, and that worrying about "Gee, we haven't replaced the PSTN yet" is

a complete waste of time.

I expect that the PSTN will muddle along doing what it does, reliable, 
stable, and relatively stagnant, until it has become as relevant to the 
working world as the smoke signals of the neolithic plains dwellers are 
to today's average mobile-equipped high-school student. From time to 
time, there will be some transitional overlap requiring us to adapt, but

that's not really the intent, focus, and mission of this working group.

To repphrase: The mission of the SIP working group is NOT to replicate 
and/or replace the PSTN. Our mission is to define an Internet protocol 
that facilitates human-centric real-time communications.

Given that OTHER organizations (generally outside of IETF) are trying to

use our work to talk to (3GPP IMS), replicate (ETSI TISPAN ISDN 
supplementary services) or replace (ITU NGN) the PSTN or parts thereof, 
we SHOULD consider their requirements and MAY act upon them, but we MUST

NOT jeopardize our mission in doing so.

This is the Internet. Behaving "like the PSTN" is just as much of a 
requirement to our work as "advancing 35mm film between two spools" is 
to digital photography. Get the picture?

--
Dean Willis

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_______________________________________________
Sipping mailing list  https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/sipping
This list is for NEW development of the application of SIP
Use [email-masked] for questions on current sip
Use [email-masked] for new developments of core SIP